Journey into the Underworld with My Older Brother

The Miracle of the Relic of the Holy Cross, detail by Vittore Carpaccio

With my older brother, we take off within what seems as a deep opened chasm within a cave, into a body of water, as if endless. The water extends dream-like with opaque energy into a vast fear. We are on a small raft, a canoe of sorts, with all of our paternal cousins. The raft edges out onto the water and its depth begins to fall under us as a tremendous anxiety takes hold, and suddenly it's as if we are all alone, although together. One of our cousins holds a light out at the front edge of the vessel. Then, I begin to fall into the treacherous dark, depth of cavernous liquid. My brother reaches out to me as I fall overboard, though his arm reaches out too short. His palm opens up with fingers outstretched with a genuine attempt full with the strength of his being unto the ends of his fingertips. Still, in the water, full of fear, I feel a great abandonment. (I remember the time when in a small bay in Massachusetts, I was left to swim for over a half hour while he and friends did watersports, completely forsaken to the water and its full, unforgiving depth of life, I swam, as it were endlessly facing my most shallow of fears.) I begin to swim, however immediately I see a shark's fin. I call out to my brother, yet he is nowhere to be found, the vessel has left without me. The shark fin passes by me and I feel a brief moment of relief, however it then turns around and heads straight for me. I experience the full great depth of fear as the whole vibration of the body of water shakes with my fear unto the ends of the finality in our human mysterium. I grasp hold of a rocky edge. (Suddenly I feel the safety of swimming in one of the sonotes in Yucatan, Mexico.) The rock seems as resin, a sharp and hard-edge crystalline foment similar to the floors of the Chauvet caves in France. I climb atop the cavernous rock, it is as tall as the side of a mountain, yet I edge into its porous underlying texture and finally ascend to the top. I reach a pile-on similar to the Inukshuk in Inuit country, however it is as constructed with the street trash of urban Cairo, Egypt. I observe this pile-on as a marker that I have reached the summit of the cave's own tallest mountain and I seem to be again in the solitude of the fantastical cliffs and mountains of Petra, Jordan, with its piles and collections of small trinkets still bundled up and set on display in the after-hours of tourist visitation. This marker reminds me that I am somewhere, although foreign, that has been visited by human hands prior to my arrival and suddenly I am in the safety of human existence. I continue to forge on, in the absolute opacity of an endless night.

Next, I am driving with my older brother and our father through to a mythic resemblance of Falmouth, Massachusetts, the end of the bay into the open Atlantic ocean. We are driving him to be sent off by ship to the other shore; Europe. He is holding a concert ticket, as if he is going there for music. We are so glad to be seeing him off, and inside I am a little jealous! The sun is bright and it is a green day in what seems like the heart of Spring. In the backseat of the car, I imagine a bird's eye view of us driving through the open roads to carry my brother off to a glorious and resounding destiny filled with music and the brightness of a future fulfilled with mutual Love.